


I Believe the Children Are Our Future

by tambuli



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Kid Fic, Time Travel, after that canon has been taken out back and shot, all the words in this fic are spelled exactly like i want them to, except for the ones i don't want them to......, no edit no beta we die in trash fires, that's not helpful, the wj server made me do it, up until episode 61 and the xhorhaus anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2020-03-02 17:29:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18815644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tambuli/pseuds/tambuli
Summary: Also known as "The Widogast Siblings' Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Vacation".Eight-year-old Una Widogast just wanted to undo a few hours so that Mama doesn't find out she messed up and takes away her bear claws. Jethro just wanted to keep his sister out of trouble. And Leofric? Leofric just wanted cuddles.What they get instead is a trip to the past, way before Jethro and Una were even born, and long before Mama and Pater even fell in love...At least Auntie Leylas and Uncle Essik are here. And cookies. Cookies are good too.





	1. Chapter 1

 “Una, this is really dumb,” Jethro hissed, blue tail flicking as he watched his twin sister unlock Pater’s magic room with lock picks she got from Aunt Nott. “Why don’t you just apologize to Mama?”

“Shut up, Jet, _you’re_ dumb,” Una hissed back in Infernal. She sucked in a breath and continued in common: “If I say sorry Mama will know it was me, and then she’ll tell Pater to not make me bear claws for a week!”

“Maybe she should know,” Jethro bit back, “instead of this stoopid plaen!”

“Stoopid plaen,” Una mocked. She chewed her lip as she twisted and turned the lock pick, and then _snick!_ Pater’s door swung open. “Anyway, you wouldn’t, Jethro.”

“Oh, wouldn’t I?” Jethro challenged. “This is dumb, you’re disobeying Pater, _and_ you left Leo alone in the nursery when you’re supposed to be watching him. Maybe you _should_ lose bear claws.”

He turned as if to go down the spiraling tower stairs.

“Well,” Una said, scrambling for a reply, “you’re a tattler and a coward and the Traveler would think so too!”

That stopped him. “He wouldn’t,” he said, unsure.

“He definitely would,” Una said, confident now in her footing. “The Traveler doesn’t like tattlers and cowards and dummies like you, so _there_!”

“No, ze Travelor loves all oef us!” Jethro cried out, his accent slipping in his agitation.

“Maybe he’ll still love you, but I bet he’d be really disappointed in you and he’ll think you suck,” Una pointed out. She whirled, copper hair smacking her brother across the face, and pushed the door to Pater’s magic room open.

Jethro followed.

Pater’s magic room looked like it always had: deeply interesting books locked away in magic shelves so little tieflings couldn’t get at them; teleportation circles etched and ready for visits to Gram Lavorre or Uncle Duceus or Aunt Leylas; a mess of papers with arcane scribbling scattered across Pater’s big desk. And there! Right there on the desk, lying on a bed of parchment: Pater’s time necklace, on which he’d been working _forever._

It was a little hourglass filled with what looked like gem dust, surrounded by rings of gleaming gold, platinum, and other metals they didn’t know the names of. Runes were carefully etched in the rings, and the whole thing thrummed with magic so potent both twins could feel it. It hung on a thin golden chain.

Una strode forward and grabbed it.

“Una!” Jethro hissed. “Be _careful_!”

“Coward, coward,” Una sang softly under her breath.

 “You take zat baeck, you—!”

Una stuck her tongue out and slipped the necklace on.

“Well,” she said, tail flicking a little, “see you in a few hours, I guess.”

“Zis ees really, really dumb,” Jethro said again. “Even eif you do succeed, I em gonna tell Mama aneywaye, you are so dumb.”

“If I succeed I won’t ever have done it and you would be a _liar_ ,” Una said. She reached up to spin the hourglass like she’d seen Pater do; one spin per hour she wanted to go back—

“Jetwo? Una?”

The twins looked at each other in panic. “Leo!”

Little Leofric, all of one and a half years old, toddled determinedly towards his tiefling siblings. Una stepped forward to swing him up, but Jethro smacked her left horn—“Mama said to let him practice walking!” She smacked his horn back harder, but stepped backward and let her brother walk towards them.

Leo’s forest green baby blanket trailed behind him, held in one chubby hand, and that proved to be his undoing. As Jethro and Una watched, Leo took one step, tripped on the cape, and fell.

“Leo!” Jethro cried out, darting forward to pick him up. Leo, well-used to falling over, simply began to babble and squirm. “Jetwo down! Down!”

He set Leo down, scowling at Una again. “See what you did? You leaft him alone!”

 “Shut _up,_ Jethro,” Una snarled, blue cheeks purpling. “How did you even get out of your crib and up the stairs, Leo?”

Leo giggled and held his blanket up. “Twavelew! Twavelew!”

“Yes, that’s the Traveler’s cloak,” Una said. Leo giggled and said, “Una! Una! Kiss!”

Una bit her lip as a smile broke across her face.

“You’re so annoying,” she informed her youngest brother. “You want to come along with me, Leo? You want to go time travel?”

“Zat’s _dangereous_!” Jethro said.

“You’re such a loser,” Una said. “Besides, I’m supposed to be watching him, right? If I bring him along that means I’m watching him.”

“I guess…” Jethro said, reluctantly acquiescing to his sister’s logic.

“I guess,” Una mocked, sweeping Leo up and pressing a kiss to his luminous blonde hair. Leo giggled and kissed her cheek wetly. “Ew, Leo. I’m sure now that the Traveler loves me and you most of all. Jethro’s so boring. Isn’t Jethro so boring, Leo? The most boring brother to ever live.”

“You take zat baeck, Una!”

“You take zat baeck, Una!” she mimicked. She hefted her baby brother up on her hip and reached for the necklace.

Howling in Infernal, Jethro lunged at his sister. She sidestepped neatly, causing him to skid across the floor and land squarely on Auntie Leylas’s teleportation circle. Unfortunately, Jethro managed to catch the back of Una’s purple coat as he fell, and down went Una and Leo.

Una twisted to protect Leo from the fall—she crashed to the ground—the time necklace shattered on the rune-covered floor—

A bright flash of magic filled the air, and when it cleared, Pater’s magic room was empty.

**                                      

Jethro and Una landed hard on the ground, letting out cries of pain.

“Una!” Jethro shouted, scrambling to his feet. He winced as he put weight on his left foot, but nevertheless extended his hand out to his sister. “Are you okaey?”

Una looked up from where she was sprawled on the ground. “It hurts,” she managed through gritted teeth.

“Where? Where do you hurt?”

Leo scrambled out of her arms and started patting Una’s face in dismay.

“I landed on my tail and I think I broke it,” she said, swiping a hand across her eyes. She struggled weakly to her feet, ignoring Jethro’s hand. “What did you have to do that for?”

“Do zat for—You were disoebeying Mama!”

“ _You were disoebeying Mama_ ,” Una mocked, more reflexively than anything else. She winced as her tail flicked. “Where are we?”

Jethro stepped closer and held out his hand. “Here, let me heal it.”

Una batted his hand away. “No, this is your fault!”

“ _My_ fault? _You_ broeke into Pater’s magick room!”

“Well, _you_ pushed me!”

Then simultaneously, they cried, “The necklace!”

Una’s hand flew up to her neck, where a golden chain hung—limp, and bearing only warped metal and shards of glass. They whirled, and at Leofric’s feet were shattered glass and scattered gem dust. Leo was just reaching out to grab a shard when Jethro swept him up, saying, “No, Leo! Don’t touch!”

Little brother settled on his hip, Jethro turned to his little sister and said with some glee, “Pater’s gonna _keel you._ ”

“No, he isn’t,” Una refuted immediately. “He’s going to kill _you_ because you’re older and you’re responsible for me and Leo.”

“We’re twins! It doesen’t caount!”

“Oh, so it doesn’t count _now_ , but last week it counted when Mama was giving out pastries?”

The twins were just about to settle in for a good scrap when Una flicked her tail too hard and winced again. Jethro bit his lip guiltily, then summoned up his magic and said, “ ** _Heal_** my stoopid seester.”

 A glow surrounded Una’s tail, and it flicked again, this time without pain. Una stuck her nose up in the air and said, “ _Still_ your fault.”

“Didn’t Pater ever teaech you to saey danke?”

Una tossed her hair and reached out for Leo. Leo scrambled into her arms willingly, patting her face and saying, “Una hurt?”

“Not anymore,” she said. Leo flung his arms around her neck and hugged her tightly. “Where are we, anyway?”

Two pairs of blue eyes scanned their surroundings—dark, but with their dark vision it didn’t matter—with geometrical etchings and carvings on the walls. There were windows, but the sky outside was night: a familiar darkness.

“The palace in Rosohna,” Jethro declared, breathing a sigh of relief. “That’s okay, we can just ask Auntie Leylas or Uncle Essik to send us back home!” Now that he was no longer so angry, his language slipped back into regular common.

Una, on the other hand, was not so convinced. “If we go back now, Pater’s just going to be mad we broke into his magic room _and_ broke the time necklace,” she pointed out.

“ _You_ broke into the room and the time necklace!” Jethro protested.

Una stuck her nose into the air. _“You’re the oldest, Jethro, so you have to be responsible,”_ she mimicked Pater. Then she mimicked Mama’s cheerful goodbye from just this morning: _“I’m leaving you in charge, okay Jethro? Take care, kids!”_

Jethro slumped. “Well, what do you want to do?”

Leo began to babble “Down! Down!” so Una let him down. She put a hand on her hip. “Well, _obviously_ if we just go back then Mama and Pater will be mad. _But_ if we stay away for a long time, maybe they’ll think we’re missing and be really sad and scared that they’ll be really thankful once we come back! And then they won’t be mad anymore!”

Jethro’s mouth twisted. “But what if they still get mad at us for not coming home right away?”

“Well…” Una stalled. “We’ll just say that Auntie Leylas or Uncle Essik couldn’t send us home right away because they were busy!”

“You’re going to lie _more_?” Jethro protested.

“Not _lie,_ lie,” Una said. “Auntie Leylas and Uncle Essik are always busy; it wouldn’t really be a lie.”

“But what if they’re _not_ busy?” Jethro persisted.

Una threw her hands up. “They always are!”

“But what if they’re not?”

“Then we’ll go find them and I’ll prove it to you!”

“There is no need,” a familiar voice said. “I am right here.”

The twins turned, and behind them was Uncle Essik, eyebrow raised sardonically, cloak fluttering as it always did, even though there was no wind.

“Unka Effik!” Leofric cried out, and stumbled-ran to him. “Unka Effik! Up! Up!”

Uncle Essik looked down at Leofric, whose chubby arms were raised high up indeed, and then at the twins, who stood before him, fairly reeking of guilt.

“Uh…hi, Uncle Essik,” Una ventured, peeking up from behind her bangs. The eyebrow remained raised, commanding her wordlessly.

“Hi…Uncle Essik,” Jethro echoed. The unflinching gaze turned on him. Una took his hand and squeezed it really tightly, not to comfort him but to menace him into silence.

Predictably, Jethro broke anyway.

“Eet was Una’s fault!” he shouted. “Una broeke into Pater’s room and I _toelde_ her not to but she did _aneywaye_ —”

“Shut up, Jethro!”

“Interesting,” Uncle Essik said. His expression was still very bland. “And Pater, I assume, has a direct link to the Empress’s personal teleportation circle?”

“Of…course?” Jethro said. He peered up at Uncle Essik. “Uncle Essik, you’re acting really strange.”

Leo, not used to being ignored by his beloved uncle, started to cry.

“Un-ka E-ffik!” he sobbed. “Un-ka E-ffik!”

Una shot a startled look at her uncle, and ran to gather her brother up in her arms. Leo kept wailing. “Uncle, what’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“That is what I myself would like to know,” another voice said. A sigh of relief crossed Jethro and Una’s lips as Aunt Leylas swept in gracefully, her dress shining and her crown as sharp as ever.

“Auntie Leylas!” Jethro cried. Una just knew He was just about to babble the entire story, so she slapped a hand over Jethro’s mouth and took over. (Jethro licked her hand, but she didn’t care, they were _twins_ , it wasn’t gross.) “Auntie Leylas, hi, we just came for a visit because we missed you—”

Muffled shouting from Jethro. Una thwapped him with her tail.

Aunt Leylas just looked at Una, and in that age-old gaze Una felt her will faltering.

“… _Imeanitwaskindofanaccident_ **but** I really did miss you, Aunt Leylas! Didn’t you miss me?” she tried, opening her eyes up really wide and smiling as charmingly as she knew how.

“Umavi, I was not aware you had young niblings,” Uncle Essik observed dryly.

“I do not,” Aunt Leylas said. “Particularly not young tieflings and a little human.” Her voice was like ice.

Una’s eyes went wide, and she dropped her hand from Jethro’s mouth.

“Pater already knows,” she said, utterly certain and utterly despairing. “Is this why you’re acting like this, Uncle Essik, Aunt Leylas? Did he tell you to?”

The fact that Pater had told Uncle Essik and Aunt Leylas to pretend that Jethro, Una, and Leofric weren’t their niblings—that Uncle Essik had refused to pick up Leo, even though everyone _knew_ Leo was his favorite—that Aunt Leylas hadn’t even _smiled_ at Una—

“Is Pater very angry,” she said softly, eyes downcast. “Is Pater very mad? Did Pater tell you not to love us anymore? Because,” and she looked up and met Aunt Leylas’s gaze, in the way Aunt Leylas always told her strong women did, “Because it wasn’t Jethro’s fault or Leo’s really, Aunt Leylas, it was all mine, and if you’re going to stop loving someone it should be just me! Not Jet or Leo!”

“That depends,” Aunt Leylas said, “on who Pater is.”

“Caleb Widogast, of course,” Jethro piped up, looking at Aunt Leylas confusedly. “Who else would it be?”

 

**

Caleb did not like the way Shadowhand Essik delivered the summons to the Bright Queen’s palace.

Essik’s face was like stone, completely expressionless, and yet his displeasure seemed to settle in a fog around him. He glided alongside the Mighty Nein, not responding to their attempts at conversation, or shutting them down completely if the conversation topic was unavoidable.

 _Why did the Bright Queen want to see them?_ They would know once they reached the palace. _Was she angry?_ Was there any reason to be? _Did she want to give them an assignment or something, that would be really cool actually—_ No.

By the time they arrived at the palace, Caleb’s anxiety was so great he wanted to rub his fingers across his arms, just as a grounding technique. Instead he kept his hands inside his pockets, fingers twitching across the components for Haste, Fireball, Wall of Fire—if things got messy, could he manage a Teleportation Circle and get all the members of the Nein within? What was _going on_?

They were not ushered to the throne room, which was where he thought they would be led to speak with the Bright Queen; they were also not led to the dungeons, which was the second place he thought they would end up. Instead, they went through beautifully decorated hallways, designs reminiscent of the dodecahedron carved into the walls—through series of magically warded and physically guarded doors—and then ushered into a sitting room that gleamed in the colors of the Bright Queen’s dress.

And there she was, the radiant, imposing figure of the Bright Queen herself, sitting primly on a blindingly white couch, crown placed upon her serene brow—

_A human child on her lap and passing cookies to two tieflings?_

“Umavi, here are the Mighty Nein,” Essik said, somehow managing to convey his utter disdain in six words.  

Leylas Kryn looked up from the saucer of cookies she was passing to a tiefling child. “I see,” she said. She stood, the human child still in her arms, and she looked no less regal for it. “Welcome.”

Jester predictably broke the silence. “Oh my gosh, that baby’s so cute! Is he yours? Did you have a baby? Did the beacon work? _Can_ the beacon work on humans?”

Beau’s eyes were wide with shock. “Did she—did she _kidnap a baby_?” she hissed to Fjord. Fjord just looked horribly confused.

The two tieflings, who had gotten to their feet when the queen rose, were nudging at each other and whispering frantically, eyes darting back and forth between each member of the Nein.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Caleb heard one hiss. “Ees zat Aunt—“

“Shut _up_! They’ll hear you!”

“But she’s so—”

“I said _shut up_!”

The two tiefling children were both blue, and at a cursory glance looked absolutely identical, but for the differences in shade of skin and hair. One was darker blue, with bright copper hair; the other was a paler azure, with dark reddish-brown locks hitting just above the shoulder.

 “Oh my gosh!” Jester exclaimed again. “You’re blue!”

The two little tieflings turned to Jester, somewhat pained smiles on their faces. “We are,” the darker blue one said, and Caleb realized this was a little girl.

“That’s so cool!”

“Uh, yes. Very,” the other said, and that was definitely a little-boy voice.

“I’ve never seen another blue tiefling before,” Jester continued blithely. “And now there are two!”

The child in Leylas’s arms began to fuss, squirming and wriggling and saying, “Down! Down!”

“Say please, Leo,” the siblings chorused.

The child repeated, “Down, pwease,” and Leylas Kryn actually _smiled_ and let the child down.

“Pardon me, Empress,” Fjord begins, “but why have you summoned us?”

The underlying question being: _and why are there children here?_

Leylas Kryn looked at them all and said, “There is no true delicate way to say this, so I shall be blunt. Have you ever met these children before?”

The way she looked at them all, as if she knew their very thoughts and could tell if they were lying, sent prickles of fear down Caleb’s spine. He wanted to cast Detect Magic, but he knew what it would tell him: this was Leylas Kryn’s inner sanctum, there was no way this place wasn’t warded to hell and back, there was no way to lie, to obfuscate—

There was no need, anyway. “Nein,” he said. “I have not met them before.”

“Not me either,” Nott said. “Hey Jessie, maybe you have!  Look, they’re blue, just like you, maybe you’re related!”

The tiefling siblings—for that was the only thing they could be—flinched hard.

“Oh, that’s unlikely,” the girl tiefling said. “What are the odds, right?” She smiled charmingly, tremulously.

“Very low,” her brother agreed.

The little human boy, now that he had been let down, bee-lined straight to Fjord and raised his arms in the universal sign of “hold me, please.”

“Unka Fword,” the child said, “up!”

“ _Leo!_ ” The girl tiefling hissed.

“Unka Fword, up _pwease?_ ” the child said, wriggling his arms. Fjord’s eyes were wide with panic as he looked around at the rest of the Mighty Nein.

Nott cackled with glee. “Well, Fjord? Are you going to pick him up?”

“Uh—I don’t think I am—the best person to do that,” Fjord said weakly. Beau, who was beside Caleb, stiffened.

“ _Up,_ ” the boy demanded. “Unka Fword, _up_.”

“How did he know his name?” Beau hissed to Caleb. “Did we call Fjord by his name before?”

“Nein,” Caleb murmured back.

“Come on, Fjord, it’s easy!” Nott said, still egging their half-orc friend on. “Or are you saying you can’t do it?”

“Babies are scary!”

The little boy, Leo his siblings had called him, seemed to be getting annoyed at Fjord’s reticence. “Unka Fword,” he said, “up! Up! Up!”

“ _Leofric_! Don’t be _rude_!” the boy tiefling hissed, then froze.

“…Leofric?”

“Ah ha ha,” the boy tiefling said. “No. That’s not his name. Not his full name. It’s, uh, Leofry King. Leofry King.”

“Your parents named your brother Leofry King?” Nott asked, her nose wrinkling.

“Our parents are _weird_ ,” the boy tiefling said. His sister scowled at him, tossing her hair.

“Great going, stupid,” the girl tiefling said.

“ _You’re_ stoopid, Ooo—oh my god,” he said.

The look the girl tiefling sent her brother wouldn’t have just burned him, it would have absolutely _vaporized_ him.

Leofry was still tugging at Fjord’s pant hem, and Fjord was still valiantly trying to ignore him. “How does a tiefling come to have a human brother?” Fjord asked.

“He was a gift,” both tieflings chorused, rolling their eyes simultaneously.

“A—gift?”

“He’s adopted,” the girl tiefling elaborated. She strode forward, crossing the invisible line that had divided the Nein from the children and Leylas Kryn, and plucked her brother from the floor, settling him against her hip. “You’ll have to be content with me, Leo,” she said to her brother. “Uuuuhhh—Mr. Fjord doesn’t want to cuddle today.”

“M-maybe some other day,” Fjord managed. He was staring at the child in the girl tiefling’s embrace with even wider eyes. “He’s really…really adopted?”

“Yeah.”

Leo squirmed in his sister’s arms, obviously very annoyed. “Down! Una down!”

The girl tiefling’s back was to Caleb, so he could see as her entire body stiffened—he glanced at the brother, and he was similarly frozen, blue eyes wide.

“Your name’s Una?” Beau asked sharply.

“Una…belle,” the girl tiefling said, crossing the line again and standing next to her brother. There was a strained smile on her lips. Then Leo gave a great big wiggle, slid down to the floor, and with all the strength of his child lungs, shouted: “UNKA FWORD! **_ELDWEETCH BWAAAST!_** _”_

 Green energy exploded from the child’s hands, crackling into shifting shades of green that looked like sunlight through leaves—the energy roiled, and a small bolt shot out towards Fjord, slamming right into his nose.

Or at least it would have, if the little bolt hadn’t fizzled out right before it hit him, leaving only a small puff of green energy that dispersed in front of Fjord’s face.

“Oh motherfrigger sheet balls,” Unabelle said.

“Mama’s gonna _keel_ you,” the boy tiefling breathed.

“No,” Unabelle said. “No, she isn’t.”

She caught her brother up again and turned to the Bright Queen. “Auntie Leylas,” she said, and the Mighty Nein sucked in a collective breath, “I think Leo is really tired and he needs his nap. May we be excused?”

For the second time today, the Mighty Nein saw a smile grace the Bright Queen’s face. “Of course, Unabelle. Essik will guide you.”

“We know the way, Auntie Leylas—” the boy tiefling protested. His sister stared daggers at him until he said, “Sorry. Thank you. We’ll just, uh. We’ll just go. It was nice meeting you,” he added to the Mighty Nein.

The Nein chorused their goodbyes, and the boy tiefling followed his sister out of the room. Despite Essik being told to guide them, the tieflings strode with purpose and fearlessness, and even the little human child seemed perfectly comfortable. In fact, as the door closed behind them, there was very faintly the sound of “Unka Effik? Unka Effik hold?”

Beau, in utter eloquence, summed up what everyone was thinking.

“What the _fuck_?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

It was little strange going to bed in Aunt Leylas’s palace knowing Mama and Pater weren’t just in the other room. Despite having been told to guide them to their rooms, Uncle Essik had raised his eyebrow and said, “Well? Where do you plan on sleeping? I do not plan on carrying your brother forever,” and hitched up Leo’s yawning form to hold him more securely. So Jethro and Una had gone straight to the rooms they used whenever they stayed with Aunt Leylas.

“The family wing. How interesting,” Uncle Essik murmured, as the twins turned a corner and went down the hallway to their rooms. Una pushed the door open.

The door opened in to a sitting room, not quite as bright and glamorous as Aunt Leylas’s, where they had just come from, but still polished and shining. The white furniture—Una couldn’t tell whether it was wood or stone—was gleaming. There was a little low table surrounded by pristine couches, every cushion arranged just so, and there were empty, elegant vases on side tables.

Three other doors led away, two on the left and one on the right; one room was Una’s, the other was Jethro’s, and the last was Mama and Pater’s.

Una, taking all this in, wrinkled her nose.

“It’s so _ugly_ ,” she said.

There was a barely audible choking sound.

“Una,” Jethro reprimanded, but even he looked dismayed. “It’s just…well you know, we haven’t been born yet, and Aunt…Leylas…hasn’t…renovated?”

This wasn’t right, not at all: the walls were supposed to be painted with Mama’s murals, all cats and flowers and sea foam-tipped waves; there was supposed to be a little column of handprints up the side of the doorway leading to the master’s bedroom, where Jethro and Una had marked their visits with blue handprints, and where Leofric had put his first forest-green mark a few months ago. The furniture was supposed to be dark purple wood, and the cushions were supposed to be deep green and cozy and shabby, perfect for hurling at each other.

Una felt her mouth twist in unhappiness. Jethro moved closer and grabbed her hand. She didn’t look at him, but she squeezed it hard.

Uncle Essik sat down on one of the couches, holding a now-sleeping Leo carefully. He tilted his head as if to say _Well, get on with it then._

Neither twin spoke, but in silent agreement they bypassed their own rooms, pushing open the door to Mama and Pater’s room. It wasn’t the way they remembered it, either—everything was fine and white, with a sort of musty-unopened-room smell, not full of warm, muted colors and Mama’s lavender perfume and Pater’s slight wood smoke scent.

But there was a bed and it was just the same size as the one back home, big enough for Mama and Pater and all three kids to snuggle in together. So Jethro pulled down the covers and Una went to fetch Leo. She tucked Leo in, and they both arranged pillows around him so he wouldn’t roll off and fall to the floor.

Jethro looked around for the bell. He couldn’t see it.

“Uncle Essik,” he ventured, leaving the master’s bedroom, “can you tell me where the bell is?”

“Pardon me?”

“The bell,” Jethro repeated. “The one you ring for servants or—oh, well, I guess we’re not supposed to be seen, I guess, but it gets cold in Rosohna and there isn’t wood in the fireplace…I mean, Una and me can light a fire! Only, we’re not supposed to without permission?”

“I see,” Uncle Essik said. “Tell me, how often do you visit Rosohna?”

“Once or twice a year all our lives,” Jethro said.

“And you are how old?”

“We’re turning nine in two months!”

“And pray tell why does your family not stay in the Mighty Nein’s abode, the Xhorhaus?” His mouth twisted.

“Oh, we do sometimes,” Jethro said. “But that’s usually for when everyone comes to visit, you know, on the anniversary of the war’s end.” Uncle Essik twitched. “When it’s just us, just me and Una and Leofric and Mama and Pater I mean, Aunt Leylas said it was easier for everyone if we just stayed here.” Jethro’s eyes opened wide. “Should we go stay there then, at the Xhorhaus? Should we be here? We can go now, if you want, only Leo’s asleep—”

“No, no, stay here,” Uncle Essik said. “I believe the empress would be most displeased if I sent away her niblings, much less explained the whole convoluted situation to your other…aunts and uncles. I believe the empress impressed the importance of secrecy of your true origins.”

There was a beat of silence, and then Uncle Essik nodded slowly, the sort of nod that meant _I am thinking on what you have told me, do not bother me, child._ “I shall call servants to tend to you. You will need sleepwear and regular clothing as well, I suppose.”

Una, who had come out of the master’s bedroom as well, looked at her purple and blue play clothes, which had some paint splotches on the front but weren’t otherwise bad. “I can sleep in these—” she began, but Jethro was already nodding enthusiastically.

“Yes please, Uncle Essik!”

The shadow of a thought of a smile touched the corner of Uncle Essik’s mouth. “I shall return shortly.” He turned and glided away.

When the door closed behind him, Una and Jethro stared at each other, then at the room. They drifted to the couches, sitting side by side.

Una broke the silence first.

“It’s weird,” she said.

“Yeah, super weird.”

“Did you see _Aunt Nott_?”

“Yeah! She was a goblin! She was really a goblin!”

“She was so _green_!”

“And Uncle Fjord was so skinny! And so scared of Leo!”

“Mama looked so different, too,” Una said quietly. “She looked so young and her hair was so short and so different and…”

She trailed off, but Jethro finished, “And she wasn’t standing next to Pater. He wasn’t touching her.”

Una nodded.

All their lives their parents had been this single unit, side-by-side in everything. How many times had the twins come out for breakfast, to find Pater making eggs and Mama making coffee and hot chocolate? How many times had their family gone out for walks along the Nicodranas coast, Pater’s hand slung around Mama’s waist as the twins went running off to throw starfish back into the waves? And when Leo had come into their lives, it was Mama and Pater together who sat the twins down and said the Traveler had given them a baby brother; Pater explained that Leo was a gift to them, and Mama said Leo had been left on the Traveler temple doorstep especially for them to find. And when Una had asked to hold Leo, and Jethro crowded in close, and Nugget and Frumpkin and Sprinkle had twisted around their feet, Mama had laid her head on Pater’s shoulder and said, _My children, my babies, thank you._

“And Pater said he didn’t know us,” Jethro whispered. “Pater said he’d never seen us before.”

“Well,” Una said, “logically, he really hasn’t.”

“But he should have known,” Jethro insisted. “In the stories that’s how it always goes! Parents always know their children.”

“This isn’t a _story_ , Jethro,” Una scoffed, and flopped back on the couch. “Besides, Mama didn’t know us either.”

“Didn’t she?” Jethro said. “She knew we were blue…”

“ _Everyone_ knows we’re blue, stupid. If anyone knew, it was Aunt Nott. She knew we were related to Mama right away.”

“Because we’re blue.” Jethro sighed, and flopped back too.

“I don’t think it’ll be so bad,” Una said after a while. “It’s like a vacation! We can hang out with Aunt Leylas and Uncle Essik all the time, and we don’t have to do lessons…”

Jethro sat up and squinted at his sister.

“You’re still trying to get out of trouble from breaking the time necklace!”

“ _You’ll_ be in trouble for breaking the time necklace,” Una countered. “Anyway, I’m right, aren’t I? We can spend lots of time with Aunt Leylas and Uncle Essik, and when Pater comes to get us back he’ll have forgotten all about punishing me. I mean you.”

“Pater isn’t going to punish _me_!” Jethro protested, but Una was already throwing a white pillow at his face, and oh, maybe the pillows weren’t so bad to throw as they seemed at first.

**

Uncle Essik came back, not just with servants, but with Aunt Leylas herself.

“Hi, Aunt Leylas, Uncle Essik,” Una greeted cheerfully, standing up. Differently-colored lights danced around her head, pulsating like heartbeats, changing color every so often. Jethro growled.

“Stay still, Una!” He puffed out his breath, and a similar puff came from Una’s clothes, removing the paint splotches.

A servant, who had entered the room with a teetering stack of clothes, swayed upon hearing the affectionate address. Another, bearing wood, steadied her.

“Hello, Jethro and Una,” Aunt Leylas said. There was a bit of a smile at the corner of her eyes. “I hope the dwelling is comfortable.”

Jethro and Una looked at each other, then nodded simultaneously.

“It’s very nice!”

“Yes, very white!”

Aunt Leylas smiled. “Is it very different from where you are from?”

Una opened her mouth to deny and placate, but that warm smile fell over her and she didn’t want to lie. “Well, yes,” she confessed, dismissing her dancing lights. “Ours had lots more color. Mama likes to paint, you know. But this is still really pretty!”

“Tell me a bit more,” Aunt Leylas invited, sitting on the couch. She patted the cushions next to her, and Jethro and Una sat on both sides of her, leaning into her.

Uncle Essik raised his brow.

As Jethro and Una began telling their aunt all about the rooms-that-were-to-be, a servant quietly entered the master’s bedroom and started arranging logs on the fireplace, and lighting the fire. The other set out clothing for the twins, and started hanging up more clothes in the white wood cabinets.

“…and this window is all sea glass, Uncle Fjord brings some home every trip and our house is full of them, so Mama started bringing some to decorate the windows here in Rosohna too!”

“Uncle Fjord always gives you some too, but I don’t know where you keep yours, Aunt Leylas.”

“Aunt Beau carved you a flute once, she gave it to you for the war anniversary, but I’ve never seen you play it.”

“Aunt _Beau_ carved me a flute—? The war anniversary?”

“You know, the waaa _aaar,_ ” Jethro said. “Between you and the Dwendalian Empire!” Then his eyes went wide. “It’s still going, isn’t it? We’re in the middle of a war, Una!”

“Don’t be stupid, the Dwendalian Empire never made it to Rosohna,” Una dismissed. “We’re safe here.”

“Of course you are,” Aunt Leylas said, smoothing Una’s hair. “Yes, Jethro, what is this about the war anniversary?”

“Well, it’s to celebrate the day the war ended and the Dynasty and Empire found peace,” Jethro said. “But if you ask me, I think the Empire just said yes to peace because they were already losing.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I mean, after Mama and Pater and Aunt Nott and Aunt Beau and Aunt Yasha and Uncle Fjord and Uncle Cad destroyed all those war machines, there wasn’t much the Empire could do.” Jethro yawned. “The…Empire’s infantry…couldn’t really…stand up…to the Kryn…soldiers…without war machines…”

“To bed,” Aunt Leylas said, a little tightly. “If you cannot speak a sentence without yawning, then I would assume that means you need sleep.”

“Sorry, Aunt Leylas.”

“It is no trouble. To bed with you.”

“Do I have to go, too?” Una asked, then yawned. Aunt Leylas said nothing, just looked at her.

“Oh, all right.”

The twins padded into the master’s bedroom, where lavender pajamas had been laid out for them. They were a bit short in the ankle, but it didn’t really matter, because then Una and Jethro were climbing into bed, under lovely thick soft covers, one of each side of Leo.

Then Aunt Leylas did what Aunt Leylas had never done before: she tucked them in and touched soft, cool lips to blue foreheads.

“Sleep well, children,” she said, and pressed a kiss to Leo’s brow as well.

“Good night, Auntie,” the twins chorused. The door closed behind her, and there the three siblings were, alone in a big bed with only a flickering fire for light.

“Good night, Jethro.”

“Good night, Una.”

“Good night, Leo.”

No answer, just the soft breathing of a content little boy.

The twins closed their eyes and went to sleep.

**

The next day they didn’t break their fast with Aunt Leylas, but Uncle Essik was there when the servant came bearing food. There was fried rice with eggs and mushrooms, and chilled berry juice, and the twins had just finished serving themselves when Uncle Essik said, “And what is the little boy supposed to eat?”

Jethro and Una looked at each other. “This?”

“Yeah, Mama has started him on solid food already.”

“You mean to say this child, this less than two-year-old child, can eat” Uncle Essik’s mouth twisted, “ _grown-up_ food and not mother’s milk? And it will not harm his stomach?”

“Probably not?” Una said, and put a spoonful of fried rice in her mouth. “Hey Jet, can you feed him this time? I’m busy eating.”

“ _I’m_ busy eating too!”

“I was busy first!”

Then Leo babbled and grabbed at the food, and Uncle Essik swept him up regally and sat in the chair. “ _I_ shall feed him,” he declared. He eyed the fried rice uncertainly. “You are sure this will not harm him?”

Jethro shrugged, and swallowed. “He eats our normal food at home too. He should be fine.”

“Yes, but Xhorhasian cuisine is rather different from…”

“Nicodranas,” Una said. “Menagerie Coast,” Jethro offered.

“Yes, quite.”

Uncle Essik looked at the babbling, squirming baby in his lap, and made a motion to the servant. “You. Fetch me some food appropriate for a child less than two years of age. Something with milk in it perhaps.”

The servant scurried away, and Jethro and Una contentedly continued eating.

“There is something concerning your safety that you must know,” Uncle Essik said suddenly. The twins looked up.

“You are aware, of course, that you have been calling the empress ‘Aunt Leylas’ in front of quite a lot of people, your family included.”

They nodded slowly.

“Rumors about you have already…begun to spread.”

Jethro made a questioning noise as he swallowed some berry juice.

“The empress has not been known to have any family for quite a long time,” Uncle Essik said. Leo squirmed, then settled with his ear against Uncle Essik’s chest. “Thus, your arrival is quite interesting to many.

“We have given out that you are the descendants of the Umavi’s sibling from a past life, and you call her ‘Aunt’ to simplify great-great-great-and-so-on-aunt,” Uncle Essik continued. “You were necessarily kept secret for the safety of the Umavi’s family; however with the war on, you have needed relocation far away from Dwendalian forces.”

Una nodded. “Cool.”

“Your names are now also, unfortunately, public knowledge,” Uncle Essik said, “as you have been heard calling each other by your true names. Nevertheless, thankfully you have not given your full names, so we will simply name you of Den Kryn and be done with it.”

“Is that…okay?” Jethro asked tentatively. “Will the rest of the Kryn permit it?”

“The Kryn will permit what the Empress permits,” Uncle Essik said. He bounced Leo a little, who was now chewing on Uncle Essik’s hair. “Child, desist at once.” He pulled his now sticky hair from Leo’s mouth. Jethro passed him a napkin.

The servant came in, bearing a tray of cut-up fruit and a cup of milk. Uncle Essik nailed the servant with a glare: “You are certain this is safe for his stomach?”

“T-The c-cook said so, Shadow-S-Shadowhand Essik,” the servant stammered. Uncle Essik gave a curt nod, and the servant turned to flee.

“Wait!” Jethro called. The servant paused, and very carefully turned around. “Yes, my lord?”

“What’s your name?”

The boy ducked his head and said, “Dee, my lord.”

Jethro smiled at him. “Thank you, Dee.”

Dee nodded, dumbstruck, then fled.

Uncle Essik raised an eyebrow at Jethro, but Jethro didn’t notice, turning back to his breakfast. Uncle Essik turned to his own problem: the fruit tray.

 He stared at the fruit, and at Leo, and very visibly tried to figure out how to feed the baby.

“You can hand him the fruit and he’ll eat it, Uncle Essik,” Jethro said helpfully. “Or you could sit him down and let him eat the fruit himself.”

Uncle Essik looked faintly horrified at the thought of hand-feeding Leo, but also horrified at the thought that Leo would _feed himself_. “Will he not make a mess if he feeds himself?”

“He probably will,” Una said, after chewing and swallowing. “But that’s all right, Mama and Pater just usually magic it away.”

“Do they now.” Uncle Essik seemed to draw himself up higher. A brief puff of magic, and his hands were clean, and he plucked a berry from the fruit tray and offered it to Leo. Leo inspected it, then chubby hands reached to grab it and put it in his mouth.

Uncle Essik seemed pleased.

Slowly, bit by bit, Leo was fed, and the twins’ stomachs were satisfied. The twins had offered to leave some for Uncle Essik, but he had declined, saying he had broken his fast earlier. As Leo was carefully given milk, so as not to slop everywhere, Uncle Essik inquired what the twins wished to do with their day.

“I…don’t know?” Una said. “Usually we go sightseeing. Can we go sightseeing, Uncle Essik? I want to go to the marketplace and see what’s changed!”

Jethro agreed enthusiastically.

“Perhaps being in the public eye is not the best idea for the empress’s niblings,” Uncle Essik said. “But I have an idea. Are you fond of arts and crafts?”

**

A few hours later, Leylas Kryn swept into her…niblings’…apartments, to find a most curious sight.

Protective cloths were laid out on the low table, as well as on the floor, and the twins were busily rolling colored pieces of dough into round shapes. Nearby, Leo was intent on his own dough, kneading and rolling and mashing it in his tiny fists.

Shadowhand Essik was perhaps the most informal she had ever seen him. He was seated cross-legged on the floor near Leo, his mantle draped across his lap, concealing his feet. He was not rolling dough, but he was watching the children with unfamiliar warmth in his eyes.

“An’ Wey-was! An’ Weywas!”

 Leo wobbled to his feet, dropping his dough, and ran to her as quickly as she could, which frankly was not very fast. As he ran, his green cloak trailed behind him.

“Well met, nibling,” Leylas Kryn greeted him, as he plowed into her legs and hugged her tightly. She raised him into her arms and pressed a kiss into his pale, luminous blond hair. As she put him down again, she noticed his eyes were a bright, shifting green, never a single color but seeming to change shade at any given moment.

“Umavi,” Shadowhand Essik said, and when she looked up he was already on his feet and paying respect to her.

“Shadowhand Essik,” she acknowledged. “What are you doing, children?”

Una Widogast beamed up at her, bright and charming and utterly guileless. “Uncle Essik knew a recipe for air-dry clay, so we’re making clay jewelry for Mama and Pater and you!”

She felt something in her heart clench. “Jewelry for me?”

Una nodded, and took something from the side of the table. It was a bracelet threaded with clay beads in varying colors; some were solid black, purple, and silver, while others had marbled colorations of the same. In the middle of the bracelet was a single, glossy clay rose, so brightly white it made the muted colors of the other beads even more striking.

“This is from me,” she said. “Jethro has something for you too!”

Jethro raised a bracelet from his side of the table for her appraisal.

It was a necklace, strung on twine. A large night-black rose sat in the middle, and three clay beads of white, purple, and silver sat on either side. It was long enough that it would rest on her breastbone if she wore it: visible, attention-catching, and obviously not made of precious materials.

She immediately took both and said, “Will you help me put it on?”

Una, beaming widely, took her hand and knotted the bracelet around her right wrist, showing her how to tighten and loosen the twine if she ever wanted to. Jethro, on the other hand, said, “Aunt Leylas, will you please sit down so I can reach?”

She did not. Instead, she sank gracefully to her knees, and turned the back of her neck to Jethro Widogast.

She fancied she heard an intake of breath from her Shadowhand. She didn’t care.

Child’s fingers carefully pushed her hair aside, and the necklace was put over her head and knotted on.

She rose to her feet and smiled at the children, feeling the slight weight on her breastbone and the strange sensation on her wrist. “How do I look?”

“You’re so pretty, Aunt Leylas!” Una said immediately. Jethro echoed it, “You’re the prettiest drow I’ve ever seen!”

 _Pretty._ Leylas Kryn had been called many things in her long, long, _long_ life: beautiful, terrifying, intoxicating, intimidating, destructive, a force of nature. But pretty… _pretty_ was a word that belonged to a young drow girl, more than six hundred years ago now; pretty was a word that belonged to a young drow girl stealing berries from her neighbor’s berry bushes, knowing the neighbor’s son was sweet on her; pretty was a word that belonged to a girl who did not yet know she was _Leylas Kryn._

“Thank you,” she said softly. She brushed a hand over the twins’ hair, twisting her wrist to feel the weight of the bracelet. “I will treasure them.”

The twins’ smiles, she thought for a moment, rivaled the brightness of the Luxon.

**Author's Note:**

> the wj server made me do it
> 
> (is becoming a recurring theme in my life)
> 
> Also yeah Jethro really, truly talks like that. When he gets angry or stressed or nervous he slips into an atrocious accent he somehow picked up from Pater and Uncle Fjord. Una never stops giving him shit about it. ELDREEAAATCH BLEAAASTE
> 
> Big love to poyo, Eyeloch, pinkevilbob, Courtneycat123, vaporwave goblin/LadyOfPurple, and uhhh whoever else contributed to this headcanon that spiraled into a Thing. Weren't we just discussing weddings? How did we end up with THIS?
> 
> follow me on tumblr at [widobravely](http://www.widobravely.tumblr.com), where i scream about widojest, caleb, nott, and my undying love for liam o'brien and sam riegel


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